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British PM expedites report on minister

Karen Kissane, London

An anti-Gaddafi fighter shows off captured weapons to British Defence Secretary Liam Fox during a visit to Misrata, 200 kilometres outside Tripoli, at the weekend. Photo: Reuters

THE career of British Defence Secretary Liam Fox was under dire threat last night as Prime Minister David Cameron demanded early delivery of a report into whether Dr Fox's behaviour had breached the ministerial code or national security.

Mr Cameron ordered that an inquiry by a defence official, due in two weeks, instead go to the cabinet secretary today following revelations that Dr Fox, who was visiting Libya at the weekend, appeared to have lied about a business meeting involving an old friend, Adam Werritty.

This followed a rash of new claims about Dr Fox's relationship with Mr Werritty, who had misrepresented himself as Dr Fox's official adviser and used House of Commons business cards even though he was not a government employee and had no security clearance.

The row intensified with fresh allegations that Mr Werritty had brokered a meeting in Dubai in June between Dr Fox and a company hoping to sell phone call encryption technology to the British military. They discussed the possibility that British soldiers from Afghanistan use it to call home without being detected by the Taliban, or allow Libyan rebels to use it to avoid detection by Muammar Gaddafi's forces, the Financial Times reported.

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The two men have been friends for about 14 years and Mr Werritty was best man at Dr Fox's wedding in 2005. Dr Fox allowed him to stay rent-free in his taxpayer-subsidised flat, to visit the ministry 14 times in 16 months, and to accompany him on up to four overseas trips.

The latest furores involve evidence Dr Fox might have lied about two meetings involving himself and Mr Werritty. Dr Fox told the Sunday Telegraph: ''I have absolutely no fear of complete transparency in these matters. I think there are underlying issues behind these claims and the motivation is deeply suspect.''

Dr Fox had strenuously denied that Mr Werritty had been present at any official meetings with foreign dignitaries, but The Observer obtained photo and videos showing Mr Werritty shaking hands with the president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, at a meeting with Dr Fox in a London hotel last year.

Dr Fox had also said that a meeting with a businessman in Dubai in June this year, attended by Mr Werritty, was the result of a chance encounter in a restaurant. But The Guardian reports that it has emails between Mr Werritty and the businessman, Harvey Boulter, that seem to indicate Mr Werritty had been trying to set the meeting up since April.

Mr Boulter told the paper: ''A meeting with the Ministry of Defence doesn't happen by chance.''

Mr Boulter is chief executive of a private finance firm that has a subsidiary called Cellcrypt, which wanted to sell encrypted telephone technology to the Ministry of Defence. He has claimed he raised with Dr Fox both this venture and a legal dispute with US conglomerate 3M, whose chief executive is British-born and who had recently received a knighthood.

Mr Boulter is now being sued for blackmail by 3M. ''According to 3M's lawyers, Mr Boulter told them that if the case were not settled out of court, the government might reconsider the knighthood,'' the Telegraph reports. Friends of Dr Fox have strongly denied this version of events.

The Independent reported a senior defence official as saying that Mr Werritty ''appears to have been involved in arms contracts all over the place. If he has been involved with less favourable regimes… it would be hugely embarrassing for the minister.''